09 January 2013

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Naval Station Rota, the largest American military community in Spain. It is located just fifty miles northwest of Alcalá, on the Atlantic coast to the west of El Puerto de Santa Maria. Surrounded by a 26 km security fence, the base covers 2,300 hectares (6,100 acres) and has its own airfield and seaport. There are no public roads going through it, and best view is from the ferry from Cádiz which goes to the actual town of Rota.

The base is home to over 20,000 people, including 9,000 Spanish and 2,000 US military personnel (Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force), together with their families, and around 1,500 civilian employees. It is completely self-contained with its own shops, bars, schools, medical and leisure facilities, though the neighbouring towns with their fabulous beaches offer an escape for those who prefer to take their R&R away from the base. It is a popular "layover" destination for US servicemen, especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The beaches, town and port of Rota, with the base in the background

NavSta Rota is officially under the Spanish flag, with Spanish customs officers and a Spanish Vice-Admiral in charge, but it is wholly funded and largely maintained by the USA. It is the largest supply facility in Europe offering fuel and weapons support for US and NATO ships, and has various surveillance and communications operations. In 2011 it was announced that the base would be the main operating centre for the sea-based component of the NATO anti-missile shield, raising hopes for new civilian jobs in an area where one in three people are out of work.

Spain's President Zapatero (left) offers up Spain
to service NATO's European anti-missile shield

The base was built following the Pact of Madrid signed by Franco and Eisenhower in 1953. The Americans, engaged in a war against communism in Korea and fearing a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, needed a base halfway between the US and South Asia. Spain's s fiercely anti-communist leader was a natural ally, despite being a pariah in the international community due to his support for the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy during WW2. The pact provided economic and military aid for Spain in return for air bases at Morón de la Frontera (Sevilla), Torrejón (Madrid) and Zaragosa, plus a naval base at Rota.

There was opposition to the pact from France and the UK, and from Spanish liberals at home and in exile. But it led to Spain being accepted into the United Nations in 1955, a big step towards achieving respectability on the world stage. It also opened the door to Spain joining the World Bank and the IMF and paved the way for the 1959 Stabilization and Liberalization Plan, leading to the "economic miracle" of the 1960s.. NATO membership was ruled out by its European members, however - Spain did not join until 1982.

The USA reaped its share of benefits too. The facilities at Rota meant that US ships and submarines didn't have to return to the US to take on supplies, saving that country tens of millions of dollars each year. When the USAF lost its bases in Morocco in 1963, the runway at Rota was extended to cope with B-52 bombers.

Working for the Yankee dollar 1: a bar in Rota

The local impact of building the base is described in a novel, La Base, by Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo (aka the Red Duchess). Farmers and fishermen had to be removed from the area by fair means or foul, and were given paltry compensation which seemed a fortune to them but left them isolated from their livelihood and homeland.

But by the early 1980s, when 16,000 Americans were based at Rota, the base had become an essential part of the local economy. It generates around 400 million euros a year in terms of salaries for civilian workers and links to businesses in the town.

"Ana María Expósito, the vice president of the local chamber of commerce, says that many local people came to depend on Rota. "My father was a waiter: he gave up his job in the village and went to work on the base, where he earned a third more. He now has a great pension. The base paid for my education, and that of my brothers. You won't find many people here with anything to say against the base."Rota: a bit of America in Spain, El País, 6 Jan 2013

"This is not the first time that Rota has had security issues. Back in the late 70s, Security was supposed to be so tight that anyone wanting access or entrance to the base had to have top secret clearance and a cyanide pill under his tongue. But a US newspaper reporter denied access to the base in those days, observed how dozens of local prostitutes were allowed in to the EM/NCO club every evening, without so much as a patdown by the guards at the main gate."

Working for the Yankee dollar 2: Bellisimas señoritas ...

US military presence in Spain has always had vociferous opposition. According to a poll taken in early 1987, when the agreement came up for renewal, 53% of Spanish citizens regarded the bases as prejudicial to the security and defence of Spain, and 47% thought they should be removed. After the 1986 referendum on Spain's membership of NATO, in which 43% voted to pull out, PSOE president Felipe González negotiated a significant reduction in the US military presence on Spanish soil.

Anti-NATO protest by Spanish Republicans

In 1973, in keeping with Spain's policy of avoiding involvement in the Arab-Israeli dispute, González withheld diplomatic clearance for the US to use the bases to resupply Israel during the Arab-Israeli War. He also refused to let them use Spanish bases or airspace during the raid on Libya in 1986, necessitating a long detour over international waters by aircraft flying from British bases.

When the right-wing PP leader José.María Aznar became president in 1996, however, Spain's relationship with the US grew warmer again. Aznar became a close friend of G.W. Bush and supported his "war on terror" by sending Spanish troops to Iraq (which helped lose Aznar the 2004 election). In 2003 a new field hospital was built at Rota to deal with injured troops returning from Iraq, and the base continues to play a major role in supplying troops and equipment to US forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Opposition to the US presence in Spain continues to be organised byLa plataforma andaluza contra las Bases Militares, a coalition of pacifists, environmentalists and left-wing groups who would like Spain to exit from NATO altogether. But they have little support amongst the roteños. The people of Rota are still hoping the missile shield will have a positive effect on their prosperity, but the latest estimate is for less than 100 new civilian jobs.

One thing that would make a significant difference to the local economy, however, would be a change in the tax status of the base, which is currently exempt. The PP mayor of Rota, Eva Corrales, is embroiled in negotiations with Madrid over compensation: "We cannot have a town within a town where one pays taxes and the other doesn't."

Recently she was given approval to charge registration tax on vehicles brought onto the base from the US. She hopes that the central government will overturn a ruling by the Supreme Court that the local council cannot charge property tax on non-military buildings on the base, such as housing or restaurants, which Corrales says would bring in some 1.3 million euros a year.

Eva Corrales, fighting for the Yankee dollar

The battle to impose taxes on the base dates back to the 1980s. In 2002 the Supreme Court backed the town council saying that it could tax non-military activities. But no government since then has been prepared to act on the ruling, and instead a change was introduced to the tax laws extending tax exemption to military establishments. In response, Rota town hall decided to stop paying the central government the equivalent of what it calculated it was losing in tax revenue from the base. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Rota town council must pay the State almost 1.2 million euros.

Four Aegis BMD-equipped destroyers like this one are due to
be deployed at Rota as part of the Europe missile shield.
We can all sleep more soundly ...